PRISON ESCAPEE MUST DO TIME - 21 YEARS LATER

A New York resident police found 21 years after his escape from a Florida road gang says he has changed his life and it's not fair that he is now clamped behind bars, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

"If I have to come back here to serve time, everything that I've been working for will go up in smoke," said George Hartman, 53, who drove to Florida this week to turn himself in. "It's not fair."

The Tallahassee Democrat reported that Hartman was studying to become a lawyer's assistant when officials finally caught up with him in March in Elmira, New York. Now he is in the Leon County jail waiting to be sent to a state prison.

Florida officials say Hartman must serve another 538 days for armed robbery - and that only Gov. Bob Graham and the Cabinet may order his release.

Hartman was sent to the Union Correctional Institution near Raiford in 1958 for robbing a motel. He served two years on the sentence then escaped, was recaptured, and sentenced for an additional two years.

In 1965 he tried again and this time got away from a road gang near Fort Myers. He fled the state and Florida officials never recaptured him.

"The only reason I escaped last time is because I thought my time should have been up and the state said it wasn't," Hartman said.

One year later, after Florida officials notified the FBI they were looking for him, Hartman was arrested for robbing a bank in Nashville, Tenn. He wrote to Florida officials to tell them he was in a federal prison but no one came and got him.

In 1974, Hartman was given nine years on parole, which he successfully completed. He got married in 1983 and began classes to become a legal assistant.